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Dr.
Sandy Ibrahim

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To open the office, PartnerMD hired Sandy Ibrahim, a young family doctor married to a Comcast engineer.The daughter of Egyptian immigrants, Ibrahim, 35, studied microbiology at the University of Michigan in her hometown of Ann Arbor, then went to Wayne State Universityâ€™s medical school, one of the biggest producers of primary-care doctors in the country.She never considered any specialty but family medicine.

â€œI wanted continuity with the patient, to grow with them and become part of their family,â€� she says.

After finishing her residency in 2003, Ibrahim joined a practice in Fairfax, then another in McLean, but found neither satisfying.
She raced through appointments and left work too exhausted to care for her two young children.
As one of the younger doctors in both practices, she was expected to make room in her schedule for fevers, sore throats, stubbed toes, and other same-day emergencies.

With a patient load of more than 2,000, she struggled to make connections or even to remember names.
Says Ibrahim: â€œI would grab lunch at the grocery store, bump into a patient I had seen that morning, and not remember that I saw them.â€�

Having decided it was time to leave clinical work, she began exploring jobs on Capitol Hill and research work at NIH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
After just five years in practice, she was going to give up seeing patients and abandon a career that had been her dream.

...

Sandy Ibrahim was scouting non-clinical jobs when she heard about PartnerMD.
She attended one of the companyâ€™s recruiting events, where company officials and doctors mingled over cocktails.
Then she went through a year of interviews and vetting, including trips to Richmond.

Ibrahim liked PartnerMDâ€™s promise that she could spend the time with patients to practice medicine as she had been trained.
She sensed that the job would translate to a better balance of her work and home life.

â€œYes, Iâ€™m a doctor,â€� she adds. â€œBut Iâ€™m also a mom, a wife, a sister, and a daughter.

...

Nearly two years later, Ibrahim has nearly 400 patients.
Though some are from her old practice, she didnâ€™t remember some when they showed up at PartnerMD.

Each patient gets a yearly health assessment that includes bloodwork, a physical exam, and a session with a nutrition-and-fitness coach.
The process takes up to three hours.
At her old practice, Ibrahim says, she crammed physicals into 15 minutes.

On any day at PartnerMD, she sees eight to ten patients, about a third of her load before. â€œYou just get to know so much more about each person,â€� she says. â€œI now have the kind of relationships with patients that probably took my former boss 15 to 20 years to make.â€�

...

In the meantime, Sandy Ibrahim continues her own version of health-care reform.
Ibrahim says she practices medicine more cost-effectively now than she ever has.
In her old practice, with only ten minutes to see each patient, she often ordered tests because she didnâ€™t have time for a thorough evaluation.
Now she can take her time and focus on prevention and wellness.

Ibrahim resists the notion that her care is elitist.
Many of her patients arenâ€™t wealthy, she says.
Some pony up for PartnerMD to get a doctor who has time to monitor a chronic illness closelyâ€"people with diabetes or heart disease or patients recovering from cancer treatment or surgeries. â€œThey want to make sure things arenâ€™t missed,â€� she says.

Ibrahim likens her move into concierge practice to the teacher who decides to work in a private school: â€œItâ€™s a personal choice.â€�

Sheâ€™s heard the argument that if more doctors go to concierge medicine, the shortage of physicians will only get worse for the average Joe. â€œWell, you almost lost me as a family doctor to a non-clinical job,â€� she says. â€œAt the end of the day, Iâ€™m a happy practicing doctor, which I think is much more important than being a disgruntled doctor whoâ€™s not practicing medicine.â€�

...

Each time, Newland says, Ibrahim has arranged for him to see specialists and watched over his care.

Dr. Sandy Ibrahim opened the PartnerMD office located in McLean, Virginia in May of 2008.
She previously worked with primary care offices in both McLean and Fairfax, Virginia.

Dr. Ibrahim said, "Concierge practices take less time to establish a meaningful doctor-patient relationship; what I learn about my patients in one physical exam at PartnerMD might have taken me three to five years in a traditional primary care setting.

Fed up with a business model that could barely keep the lights on, Sandy Ibrahim left her job as a McLean primary care physician in March 2008, bringing her stethoscope and a handful of patients to a new practice less than a mile away.

By joining PartnerMD, Ibrahim hopped aboard a burgeoning trend in medical care, one that is pulling back from the breakneck pace of many modern medical practices.
At PartnerMD, Ibrahim is now a concierge doctor — a cross between the lawyer you keep on retainer and the Marcus Welby M.D.-like doctor who lives mostly in your imagination.
Yes, in a pinch, Ibrahim makes house calls.

“A few people from my old practice followed me here to this practice, and I didn’t even recognize them,” she said, sheepishly.

That’s hardly surprising, given the 2,000-plus patients Ibrahim was juggling at her old practice, where high volume had to make up for low insurance payments.
By relying primarily on annual membership fees paid by each patient, PartnerMD and other concierge practices aim to carry just 20 percent of the patient load the typical family practice has.

Despite the hefty fee — as much as $4,000 for true white-glove treatment — Partner- MD’s patient rolls include horse farmers, teachers and homemakers, along with CEOs and at least one former head of state. (Wisely, Ibrahim declined to identify the political leader, but let’s just say her eyes widened, her breath quickened and — she says — her heart started racing when she discussed the thrill of working with this person.)

...

“The insurance companies do reimburse us, but it’s peanuts,” Ibrahim said.
“But even if it’s 2 cents, we just accept the 2 cents and move on.”

Although the McLean office was designed for three doctors, Ibrahim is the only general practitioner there at the moment.
Once a second doctor joins and builds a full patient base, the McLean office will break even each month, even before taking insurance reimbursements into account.

Concierge care’s proponents have an eye on the health care reform debate on Capitol Hill, but they don’t expect reform to change the way they do business, partly because any system that underpays and overworks primary care doctors will result in demand for this type of alternative.

“I would like to think this model is what health care will be eventually,” Ibrahim said.

To open the office, PartnerMD hired Sandy Ibrahim, a young family doctor married to a Comcast engineer.The daughter of Egyptian immigrants, Ibrahim, 35, studied microbiology at the University of Michigan in her hometown of Ann Arbor, then went to Wayne State University's medical school, one of the biggest producers of primary-care doctors in the country.She never considered any specialty but family medicine.

"I wanted continuity with the patient, to grow with them and become part of their family," she says.

After finishing her residency in 2003, Ibrahim joined a practice in Fairfax, then another in McLean, but found neither satisfying.
She raced through appointments and left work too exhausted to care for her two young children.
As one of the younger doctors in both practices, she was expected to make room in her schedule for fevers, sore throats, stubbed toes, and other same-day emergencies.

At PartnerMD, where her patient load is smaller than that of many physicians, Dr. Sandy Ibrahim can devote more time to patients like Pamela Minett, a firm administrator at General Counsel PC.

...

Fed up with a business model that could barely keep the lights on, Sandy Ibrahim left her job as a McLean primary care physician in March 2008, bringing her stethoscope and a handful of patients to a new practice less than a mile away.

By joining PartnerMD, Ibrahim hopped aboard a burgeoning trend in medical care, one that is pulling back from the breakneck pace of many modern medical practices.

At PartnerMD, Ibrahim is now a concierge doctor - a cross between the lawyer you keep on retainer and the Marcus Welby M.D.-like doctor who lives mostly in your imagination.
Yes, in a pinch, Ibrahim makes house calls.

"A few people from my old practice followed me here to this practice, and I didn't even recognize them," she said, sheepishly.

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I agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. I understand that I will receive a subscription to ZoomInfo Community Edition at no charge in exchange for downloading and installing the ZoomInfo Contact Contributor utility which, among other features, involves sharing my business contacts as well as headers and signature blocks from emails that I receive.